Natural Law

Natural Law, theorised by Thomas Aquinas, begins with the faith that, God is all-loving. Aquinas based his theory around this belief meaning that is one does not agree with this foundation then they will not believe or agree with the theory of Natural Law. The law is written in two parts, the first is that our purpose has been given to us by God, and is natural top humanity. The second part says that, therefore, the right and moral thing to do is to follow our purpose, whatever is natural to you. Natural Law is both de ontological and teleological because it focuses both on purpose and the fact that it produces the direct rule that one must follow this specific purpose. Aquinas wrote the Primary Precepts setting the purpose of humanity, to live peacefully, to protect the innocent, to educate the young, to reproduce and to worship God. Through the Primary Precepts you can decide what the moral thing is to do in every situation, these are the Secondary Precepts, for example from the precept 'educate the young', one realises that children must be provided with a proper education.

Natural Law Applied

In the situation of a criminal being sentenced the death penalty, Aquinas would apply the precepts of Natural Law. This action contradicts living peacefully, worshiping God, to reproduce, and to educate the young. By executing the criminal, one would contradict the precept to live peacefully because this would be a murder, inherently violent, however the criminal also murdered many people meaning they were not living peacefully. This also may not have allowed the criminal to reproduce or directly educate the young however both these points are circumstantial, depending on the certain person convicted. The Abrahamic God states that murder is wrong so by executing the criminal this disagrees, but the criminal already broke this 'rule' so it may be deemed irrelevant. The last precept 'to protect the innocent' is the only idea, unbroken, however challenging this it may be argued that the criminal could go on to never murder again, murder someone who is not innocent or the criminal themselves were wrongly convicted. In all these instances they break the idea of protecting the innocent. Overall, Aquinas and anyone following the precepts of Natural Law would decide that the death penalty breaks too many precept to be a natural purpose of life given by God. Natural Law disagrees with the death penalty.